INDONESIA'S EX-STRONGMAN CHARGED

Sick, bewildered and besieged at his home by angry protesters, former President Suharto was formally charged Thursday with corruption during his 32 years of unchecked power in Indonesia.

The charge involves only a small portion of the corruption that characterized his rule, but it sends a significant signal of Indonesia's attempts to overhaul its economy and political system and lay the basis for the rule of law.

President Abdurrahman Wahid has said repeatedly that he would pardon Suharto but only after the legal process is complete. He has also suggested that Suharto could strike a deal by returning his wealth to the nation.

Unless his lawyers can use his illness and mental incapacity following a stroke to delay things, Suharto, 79, could be put on trial this month, said Atty. Gen. Marzuki Darusman.

"The official charge legally, of course, will be done in the courtroom," Darusman said. "But as of today he has been officially charged by the attorney general's office."

Some analysts said the attorney general was trying to hurry things in advance of a state of the nation address by Wahid next week. Progress in the case may be one of the few accomplishments Wahid will be able to present as his country struggles to find its footing following Suharto's forced resignation in May 1998.

The charge, like a series of interrogations that led up to it, was presented at Suharto's home in central Jakarta, where he has been confined to house arrest since May.

Unappeased, a small group of mostly young protesters rallied in the streets outside his home, as they have many times before, raising a familiar battle cry, "Hang Suharto!"

Both prosecutors and defense lawyers have said the former president is frail and has shown difficulty comprehending and answering questions. They offered conflicting accounts Thursday on whether he had been alert enough to sign a formal acknowledgment of the charges.

"A person who cannot explain his thoughts should not be put on trial," said Muhamad Assegaf, one of Suharto's lawyers. The attorney general's office said its case also included the testimony of more than 100 witnesses, including three of Suharto's six children.

Technically, Thursday's proceedings involved the presentation of the case to the city prosecutor's office by Darusman's office. Lawyers on both sides said Suharto's status had shifted from "the suspect" to "the accused."

The case focuses on the misuse of at least $150 million funneled through tax-free charitable foundations controlled by Suharto. That falls far short of the billions of dollars he, his family and his circle of favored friends are reported to have stolen.

Darusman said he was seeking to carve a narrow and provable case out of a complex web of financial manipulation during Suharto's rule, much of it legalized at the time by presidential decrees.

In an interview last month, he said investigators had not been able to find any money hidden overseas and were concentrating on the former president's assets in Indonesia. Two buildings connected to the charitable foundations have been seized by the government.

Though Thursday's action symbolized the government's good intentions, there has been little progress so far in reforming the laws and institutions that Suharto manipulated for his gain.

The major monopolies of the Suharto years have mostly been broken, said James Castle, who heads The Castle Group, a leading consulting and investment advising company, and there is less large-scale corruption because there are fewer lucrative investments in Indonesia's slumping economy.

For some Indonesians, Thursday's action was far from satisfactory.

Albert Hasibuan, a human-rights lawyer who leads a private group called Corruption Watch, said he was disappointed by the narrow focus of the case. "The charges should include not only the foundations but also the collusion and nepotism which has benefited the children and the cronies and has robbed the state of billions of dollars," he said.

On the other hand, political scientist Dewi Fortuna Anwarsaid she did not believe that most Indonesians really wanted Suharto to go to jail.

But they apparently do not want to see him on their banknotes, either.

As of Aug. 21, the 50,000 rupiah bill that bears his image (once worth $20 and now worth less than $6) will no longer be legal tender. In its place, a new banknote carries a portrait of the composer of the national anthem, Wage Rudolf Soepratman.